Racing: Innes fortunate to be alive after fall

Hardy veteran Bulginbaah was too good for younger rivals in the Foxbridge Plate on Saturday. Photo / Christine Cornege

Leading jockey Leith Innes is lucky to be alive today.

Sickening is the only way to describe the fall he had from Irish Colleen in Saturday's $70,000 Waikato Stud Foxbridge Plate.

Innes was yesterday in Waikato Hospital with a fractured elbow, a hairline fracture of a bone in his lower back, severe bruising and in extreme pain.

For the record, Innes was attempting to get Irish Colleen in behind the eventual winner Bulginbaah in third place at the end of the back straight.

Irish Colleen clipped Bulginbaah's heels as she slotted in, fell heavily and brought down Who Knows.

Most of the horses in the field behind hit Innes in some manner as they went over the top.

The stipendiary stewards' vision of the incident was from a camera positioned on the outside rail directly in line with the fall.

It showed graphically that Innes was hit so often his body rolled three complete turns then Irish Colleen, who ended up colliding with the running, appeared to land on him with her hindquarters.

The injury comes at a bad time for Innes with spring racing about to start.

He faces a long haul back - he was due to have pins inserted into his elbow yesterday afternoon - but however long it takes, he can consider himself lucky.

The fall spelt the end of Irish Colleen's racing career.

"That's one warning too many - she's in the broodmares' paddock," said owner Daniel Nakhle.

Irish Colleen badly stripped a leg when she appeared to hit one of the running rail uprights.

As bad as the incident might have been, it's difficult to agree with Trackside Television's policy of editing out such things from replays of races.

The fall was removed from the vision telecast in yesterday morning's replays.

Who are we kidding here?

Are we meant to pretend such things don't happen?

If there had been a fatality you could understand it, but there wasn't.

The Foxbridge Plate was the biggest flat race run in New Zealand on Saturday. Even those who were only mildly interested in the race had already seen the fall.

Are we going to edit out punches thrown in rugby tests, or illegal tackles?

It would be unfortunate if the fall took some of the attention away from the magnificent effort by Wanganui veteran Bulginbaah in winning the race for the third time.

If Bulginbaah is 10 years old it wasn't showing as Trudy Thornton punched him away from the opposition to a clear-cut win.

"He's racing like he doesn't know he's 10," said Thornton.

"But he was a bit casual today, I had to work on him a bit to get him to race forward."

Thornton had mixed emotions immediately after the race.

Stipendiary steward Alan Coles told Thornton as she was taking the saddle off Bulginbaah that her daughter Sam Collett had crashed from Who Knows when he went over the top of Irish Colleen, but that she was okay.

Thornton weighed in and rushed back to the birdcage just as Sam Collett arrived out of the ambulance, the pair embracing.

Bulginbaah is remarkable. As a young horse he was hardly attractive, constantly skinny with a dull coat.

It's only in the past season or so, at an age when most are retired, that he's filled out, muscled up and started to convey the impression of attractiveness. He looked one of the physical stars of the parade on Saturday.

"We used to be embarrassed by him," said part-owner and trainer Catherine Wilson.

There has never been anything embarrassing about the way Bulginbaah has attacked his opposition to take his bankroll to $677,200.

"He's tough," said Trudy Thornton, "just like me."

Sorry Trudy, he's not quite that tough.

FOXBRIDGE PLATE

* Jockey Leith Innes was lucky to escape with a broken elbow in a mid-race crash.
* The fall ended the racing career of Irish Colleen.
* Veteran Bulginbaah defied his 10 years to completely eclipse the opposition.